Kalliope
Means "beautiful voice" from Greek καλλος (kallos) "beauty" and οψ (ops) "voice". In Greek mythology she was a goddess of epic poetry and eloquence, one of the nine Muses.
Join us every Tuesday afternoon at the Daily Kos community political poetry club.
Your own poetry is always welcome in the comments.
Bongos, berets & turtle neck sweaters optional.
The keyboard is mightier than the sword.
The twigs and sticks pop under my shoe.
The dead leaves whisper their complaint.
We are dry husks,
curled remnants of our youth.
Must you crush our withered bodies?
Keep to the path and leave us in peace.
We gathered in the light
and fed our mother as she fed us.
Tethered to her arms, we trembled as one.
We genuflected in one green body to every breeze.
We dressed for Carnival and leapt into November.
Our furious dance ended in gutters,
in damp corners, and cold mud.
We came to rest over the rotted corpses of our elders.
Do you come to disturb our mouldering slumbers?
The perches of our youth are already set with buds.
Creatures of dark wraggle and turn beneath us.
They dine on our forebears
and drop nourishment for the roots that suckled us.
If you keep to the path,
you will not hear us whisper our regrets.
Walk on and pay us no mind.
We will return the favor if the wind wills it.
I made my apologies,
and stepped carefully to the path.
In the failing of the afternoon
the wind ruffled the leaf litter.
The luckiest among them were lifted
and spun in ecstatic cyclones
by the object of their devotion.
We perceive gods and demons
in the wind, in the rain,
on the breakfast table
and a mountain's peak.
The physics and forces of reality
are stupendous and sacred in their own right,
without horns or halos hung on them.
Gales will blow with banners or no.
You can shout this truth to the leaves.
They will not hear you,
nor would they care if they could.
They know what they hear in the air.
Sleep, precious leaves.
Cover my hollow bones and brittle sinews
under a blanket of green sun.
Your whispered prayers to the wind will be my lullaby.
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